Illinois disciplinary flaws highlighted in doctor's sex case

State missed convicted physician's admission of at least 3 sexual relationships with patients

January 17, 2011|By Christy Gutowski, Tribune reporter

Dr. Angelo Consiglio, convicted in a 2004 sex case, is seeking to have his Illinois criminal record sealed as he tries to jump-start his career in the Florida Keys.

Kate Byrnside considered her doctor a trusted friend until the ear, nose and throat specialist groped and forcefully kissed her in his Carol Stream office.

For his actions during that 2004 appointment, Dr. Angelo Consiglio pleaded guilty to battery a year later and had his medical license suspended for four months.

Now, six years later, he wants his criminal record sealed as he tries to jump-start his career in the Florida Keys — an effort that has exposed failure in how Illinois regulators originally handled the case.

State regulators say they were unaware that Consiglio acknowledged sexual liaisons with at least three other female patients in Illinois, according to records obtained by the Tribune. The misbehavior was something regulators in Florida learned by requesting records from counseling sessions.

The information could have been available to Illinois regulators. They had access to psychological evaluations that Florida used in weighing whether to grant Consiglio an unrestricted license, experts say.

Instead, the Tribune found that Illinois did not document all of Consiglio's wrongdoing, doling out a punishment that the state now says could have been harsher had it known the extent of his earlier misdeeds.

Consiglio's story illustrates yet another way that the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation has struggled with disciplining doctors. Previous Tribune stories have shown how regulators can be slow to respond to doctors accused of sex crimes —- even those who have been convicted — and that some dangerous doctors continue to practice without supervision.

Illinois officials say the five-year statute of limitations in which they could have disciplined Consiglio further has expired. Prosecutors, though, are fighting his attempt to have his record sealed. A court hearing on his request is scheduled for Tuesday in DuPage County Circuit Court.

"He's trying to prevent the public from knowing about his conviction," said DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin. "The public has a right to know that the doctor they chose to see has been convicted of inappropriate fondling. Anything less would be a dangerous miscarriage of justice."

Consiglio, 54, who didn't respond to interview requests, has expressed remorse for his actions and promised he has learned his lesson.

The doctor held surgical staff privileges at Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, Delnor Hospital in Geneva and Edward Hospital in Naperville and served as an assistant clinical professor at Loyola University Medical Center. His income, according to court records, approached $1 million a year.

But his career took a dramatic turn on Jan. 5, 2004.

In her three-page police statement, Byrnside said Consiglio pulled her sweater up over her bra and groped her breast after she became dizzy and warm during a sinus procedure. Later, when she tried to leave, the doctor forcefully kissed her, she said.

"It stopped when he decided he was done," wrote Byrnside, of Elmhurst, who was then 29.

"I trusted this man as a doctor and a friend. I feel betrayed and violated."

Police arrested Consiglio after a four-month investigation after he made incriminating statements during phone conversations with Byrnside that detectives secretly recorded, records show. The doctor pleaded guilty on Jan. 26, 2005, to misdemeanor battery and was sentenced to a year's probation and ordered to get counseling.

Days after his guilty plea, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, the agency that disciplines doctors, suspended his license after finding his continued practice of medicine "constitutes an immediate danger to the public," according to the order.

Consiglio's license remained suspended for four months, after which he was placed on professional probation for 14 months, records show. He was allowed to practice as long as he had a chaperone in the room with female patients, completed a course on appropriate professional conduct, continued with counseling and submitted quarterly compliance reports.

Similar to many states, Illinois reinstates the licenses of doctors who have admitted to sexual misconduct if they go through a counseling and evaluation process. Consiglio spent nearly two months in 2005 attending an estimated 100 classes at the Behavioral Medicine Institute in Atlanta, where professionals are treated for sex addictions and other problems, records indicate.

The treatment included polygraph exams where offenders such as Consiglio would have been asked about whether they were guilty of other professional sexual misconduct violations, an official at the institute said.

Consiglio passed his polygraphs and was successful in treatment, records show. Dr. Stafford Henry, who evaluated Consiglio for Illinois officials, found he was "safe to practice medicine," according to the records. The doctor's Illinois license was restored without restrictions in August 2006.